Gino’s: 80 years and three generations

By DAVID HULSE

PORT JERVIS, NY — In these days of fast food, franchised restaurants and frozen dinners, how do you keep a neighborhood family restaurant open for 80 years?

Rich Codichini says the secret is to put in 15 to 18 hours a day at work and that’s what he and his wife, Mary, have been doing at Gino’s Tavern and Restaurant for the last 17 years.

Gino’s, at the traffic light before the Mid-Delaware Bridge, has become a landmark in Port Jervis in recent years. But when Rich’s grandfather Ercole Codichini bought the place in 1924, the idea was to provide good, simple food and accommodations for the people who lived in the working class neighborhood known as “The Acre.” Most of them, like the elder Codichini, worked for the Erie Railroad and its successors. Rich points out an old photograph where lunch was advertised for $.35 and dinner of chicken or steak was $.60.

Rich’s father, Gino, took over the business and gave it his name. He kept the prices low and the quality high, even in the bar. Gino priced his drinks so low that he was once called into a state sales tax audit, because the state people had gone over his liquor purchases and didn’t believe the resulting reported sales. Gino was selling drinks for about one third of the competitors’ prices, Rich says. “If you didn’t have money, he’d buy you a drink.”

Gino just didn’t like raising his prices. He rented two apartments in the building for $35 a month, with utilities. The price got so far out of whack that, “At one point the tenants raised their rent. That was my father,” Rich said.

Gino’s sisters, Anita and Zita, kept the business open when Gino joined the Marines during World War II.

There have good times and bad.

Rich remembered his father’s failed efforts to save his stock when the river flooded in 1981. “We brought everything up from the basement and put it on the tables. We lost it anyway and it took a month before we could open again.”

But, he said, “There’s been a lot of good times, fun times. We’ve met a lot of good people.”

If you go to eat at Gino’s there are some practical rules you have bear in mind.

First, don’t call for a reservation because they don’t take reservations. Rich says the regulars come in and see an empty table waiting for a late reservation and people get mad. However, you can call ahead and see how busy they are.

Don’t go for lunch because they don’t serve lunch. “We used to do 115 to 130 lunches every day, but we found we just didn’t have time to get ready for dinner,” he said.

Don’t go too much after six, because you’ll probably find you’ll have to wait for a table. The good side here is that Gino’s has early-bird specials from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Gino’s is open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Sunday. You can call them at 845/856-3965.